A shift in the provision and delivery of accompanying learning entities became recently apparent in the framework of real estate education. So far, scripts, syllabi etc., were delivered in printed form to the postgraduate students. Paper-based media have been serving for a long time and especially the feature of handwritten annotations by the students has to be highlighted. However, some shortcomings have been on the agenda as well, such as the issue of colour images. Also the handling had certain constraints in the timeline of delivery. Digital file distribution allows to delay to a certain extent the handover of materials from the lecturer to the students. On top of this the searchability of PDF-files is for example striking. Real estate students in the area of continuing education at Vienna University of Technology do since 2013 not receive any longer paper-based media. At the very beginning of a study course a tablet is handed over, which belongs to the student. By way of preinstalled apps for example annotations can be performed. On top of this coloured images are contained. All in all the ease-of-handling has to be highlighted as neither a tutorial is needed, nor the tablet requires perpetual maintenance. The iPads are connected to the existing Virtual Learning Environment and the delivery takes place via a standard internet browser. Though also smartphones could be connected, these screens are in general too small to support learning activities for a long time. It is expected that in 3-5 years tablets will be widely used by students already before the Start of their studies and therefore any commitment of the course provider in terms of hardware delivery will not be any longer required.

Since over 15 years RICS is establishing profound and trusted relationships with universities running accredited courses. Even before the online learning revolution and the emerging MOOC, RICS started its online learning initiative. Today the RICS Online Academy provides members and professionals working in land, property and the built environment with convenient, flexible, online study options outside of the traditional classroom. Since its launch in 2011, RICS training has been very successful in the UK. This year demand has become more international therefore, our efforts in the future months will focus on introducing online training in continental Europe, Russia & CIS. At the same time we want to intensify the co-operation with the industry and academic world on the further development of training and education. We follow our vision to be recognised as the premier provider of training services in the land, property and construction sectors and we will be working on a suitable training offer for our stakeholders in continental Europe, Russia and CIS.

To function effectively in multiple roles and priorities concerning property students need to know property knowledge that they would not know prior and sadly, all too prevalently, after to an introductory real estate principles course. These roles subsume responsible citizen, consumer of property goods and services, choosing place in which to live, selecting and arranging the terms of a particular property interest, property in business, development and the place making process, property financing and investing, and the various functions of property and the careers associated with those property functions. This big scope, big scale, big tent knowledge prescription implies an audience for property education extending well beyond those who might work in the property discipline per se. Introductory property textbooks, however, are predominantly oriented to those who would pursue property careers. The design of a property curriculum necessarily follows from consideration of the scope and particulars of the property discipline as widely recognized and practiced. If the property discipline is considered narrowly, as it most often is, then the needed knowledge may be very different than if the property discipline is considered more broadly, as it too seldom is. Consider the differences in how need to know property knowledge might be defined from such contrasting perspectives as:

Sell side or buy side

Business level or individual consumer level

Private property or public good

Property owner or tenant

Property provider or property user

The property discipline is most be effectively considered from dualistic perspectives, a portfolio of yin and yang contrasts. Just as property practitioner and professionals education must reconcile the challenge of balancing established institutions and new models, tradition and innovation, continuity and discontinuity, so, too, must the articulation and instruction of property knowledge reconcile these competing objectives. This task is made even more fraught by the extraordinary change in so very many elements of the property discipline. This paper builds on an empirical content analysis of real estate textbooks in relationship to their relative emphasis on major categories of knowledge, to consider the degree to which these textbooks cover the major perspectives that may be favored for property knowledge. A structure to organize property discipline knowledge into 15 property knowledge domains is provided. The property discipline’s knowledge that students need to know encompasses (1) contemporary societal values and challenges that shape property experiences; (2) technology advances in the critical TICMELM technologies: transportation, information, communications, making, energy, learning and money; (3) shifting “rules of the game” as in the form of restrictions and regulation governing public places and private property interests. These considerations are seen in varying degrees in the focus of scholarly research concerning the different elements and topics of real estate knowledge between different places and over time. The cumulative interaction of these forces and factors defines what students need to know about property. Juxtaposing this need to know prescription results in a discordant mismatch if not a chasm between to what the textbooks actually teach and property and what students need to know. This paper introduces the means to enable students to know what they need to know about the property discipline.

Over the past several years the University of Auckland Business School’s Department of Property has redesigned several of its core papers to embrace online learning and other technologies in order to challenge and create an exciting learning environment for our undergraduate students. Three courses have adopted a blended learning model with purpose-made online lectures coupled with regular interactive face-to-face tutorial sessions featuring the online Top Hat student response system. These and other papers have also embraced two free Internet tools developed by the University of Auckland. Aropa enables students to peer review classmates’ assignments while Peerwise invites students to draft their own practice questions and share them with their peers. Lastly, the no-cost online Q&A platform Piazza is being incorporated into the Department’s courses to allow students to crowdsource answers to their questions from peers with academics and teaching assistants monitoring and contributing when needed. Being digital natives, university students are enamoured by these innovative teaching methods and are taking full advantage of the flexibility and enriched learning that these tools offer.

Since the beginning of first Real Estate Master’s Program in Turkey 2001, real estate finance as a term has been changed and evolved by definition from space and asset market players. After 2007 mortgage system is introduced in the country and past 7 years market is demanding more knowledge and data in order to position itself to rapid changing of game rules from local and central governments. Among those changes the real estate finance course at Istanbul Technical University started a curriculum mostly from US perspective while strengthen the enrollment from Erasmus programs in EU. While most of the fundamentals of real estate finance stays the same, multidisciplinary backgrounds of the students provide different viewpoints and investment/ risk perception to be discussed throughout the year. In this paper, the survey data of Master’s Programme graduates and current students analyzed and discussed.

Most of Italian Universities are public-sector bodies, recently entitled to become private foundations. They are characterized by regulatory autonomy, teaching autonomy and financial one. The principle of autonomy in teaching means that Universities may decide the distinguishing features and contents of study courses offered to students. Nevertheless, formative paths designed by each University must meet certain criteria, expressed by ministerial decrees, in terms of objectives to be pursued providing a set of compulsory training activities.

A vast number of case studies (some of which are considered classic works) is produced in academic/scientific operative research, thesis and dissertation research as well as in professional practice across a variety of traditional social science disciplines - like psychology, sociology, political science, anthropology, history and economics - and practice oriented fields such as urban planning, public administration, public policy, management sciences, and education. Case studies often occur also in evaluation research (Yin, 1989) and, quoting from Stake (1995, p. 95-6), we can even say that “All evaluation studies are case studies.” In recent years, a deep theoretical and methodological reflection on case studies produced a wide and rich scientific literature in different social research fields including economics, the most ambitious social science in its epistemological aspirations (George e Bennett, 2005). In the field of project evaluation, the extensive use of case studies is not combined with an actual awareness of its theoretical and methodological foundations or its potential as a theory-building tool and, as a consequence, some considerations on case-study as a research strategy are needed. From a methodological point of view, this presentation mainly aims at:

framing and defining the case-study as a research strategy (has the case-study scientific bases? What are the main features of case study? In what does it differ from other research strategies (experiment, statistical analysis, archival research, history) setting in which situations case-study is more suitable than other methods and when it is worth using it;

proposing a definition of a case-study as a research strategy suitable for evaluation and survey;

illustrating the main types of case-studies in the literature (e.g.: exploratory descriptive, explanatory, intrinsic, instrumental, etc.);

presenting the case-study research design;

highlighting the main criticisms to case-studies method (with a special, even though not exhaustive, attention to the problem of results’ generalization and validity).

From the point of view of evaluation and survey, this work aims at stimulating a reflection on the need to provide evaluative case studies with major scientific foundation suggesting the opportunity to apply a case – study research design suitable to this scientific field.

This short essay try to discuss the key issues about doctoral research in real estate appraisal within a Ph.D. Course in regional planning and public policy, which is held at IUAV University of Venice.